The prior art related to fabric spreading machines includes both manually operated machines and motor driven machines. In the manually operated fabric spreading machines a carriage, which holds a supply roll of fabric, is moved by hand along a cutting table thereby spreading fabric from the supply roll onto the table. The problems related to this machine, in addition to the difficulty in manually moving the carriage along the table, include the requirement for moving the carriage at a steady rate in order to prevent stretching or wrinkling of the fabric. In addition to manually moving the carriage along the table, the operator must constantly watch the fabric being deposited in order to correct stretching or wrinkling.
The above problems have been largely overcome through the provision of motor driven fabric spreading machines in which the carriage is driven along the surface of the cutting table by an electric motor. These problems however remain for fabric cutting enterprises which have invested in manual fabric spreading equipment and for whom economic factors, governing these enterprises, do not permit the scrapping of current equipment and the investment in newer motor driven equipment.
In some motor driven spreading machines an operator platform is mounted on one side of the machine carriage so as to move along the floor as the carriage is motor driven back and fourth along the cutting table. An operator stands on this platform and thus travels with the machine to observe the fabric operation, straightening the laid-down fabric by hand if it becomes wrinkled or is deposited out of alignment.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a drive platform assembly which is itself motor driven and which is adapted to be mounted on the carriage of existing manually operated fabric spreading machine in such a manner as to provide motorized operation of these machines and convert them into motor driven spreading machines.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a moving platform upon which an operator may stand to inspect the fabric while it is being deposited by the fabric spreading machine onto the cutting table.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a moving platform apparatus which enables an operator standing thereon to control the speed of a fabric spreading machine.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a drive platform apparatus capable of driving the carriage of a fabric spreading machine and reversing the direction of travel of the carriage to deposit successive layers of fabric onto a cutting table.
Still another object of the invention is to provide a drive platform for a fabric spreading machine which comprises a relatively small number of simple component parts which are economical of manufacture resulting in an overall low cost.